UnWholly

This was a fantastic next installment in the Unwind trilogy. Hopefully we won’t have
to wait five years for the final installment, but if UnWholly is any indicator, it will be worth the wait.

The first thing I loved about this book is how Shusterman
handled catching-up the readers with the first book. He had a section at the
beginning titled, “And the Question Is . . .” where he used Jeopardy style answers
and questions to remind readers of what happened in the first book in the
series, Unwind. Very helpful, but
definitely one should read the first book before jumping into the second.

Happily, we get Connor, Risa, and Lev back, along with a
smattering of others from the first book. We have some new and interesting
characters introduced: some bad kids (one a bad seed really; he’s got some
grudges and you see why his parents wanted to unwind him); a good kid; some bad adults (ooh, I just loathed the one bad
in the name of science!), some good adults (don’t get used to them) and a “rewind”
creation who is made of human parts but is he human?

There are several storylines going at once, but it works and
builds a lot of suspense and tension. Each chapter is titled by whomever is
narrating. We find out more background about the war and accord that brought
about unwinding, and as is often the case, the history books haven’t
necessarily told the whole story. This opens up a whole new direction for the
third book, though I still hope we get more information or flashbacks about the
war.

This book really makes you think about the reasoning behind
things like when something continues because it’s become a staple of the
economy and not because it’s a right or moral thing to do. There are so many
parallels to what’s happening in our world now; we have “parts pirates” with
organs being sold on the black market.We wonder if a cure for cancer isn’t forthcoming because so many
industries would bankrupt.The books
issues are ours, thinly veiled.

My Clean-O-Meter rating is a 3.5 out of 5 Stars (where a 5
is squeaky clean). This book is violent and there is a higher death count than
in Unwind. Given the nature of the
story, this makes sense and adds to the general feeling that we’re building up
to something big and that this world is going to change again. There might have been a random “s**t”
somewhere, but language is not an issue, and there aren’t any sexual situations
or references at all.

I highly recommend this series, and one of the reasons is
that the first book could have stood alone, and adding this one, the two could
have stood as a pair.I am RARELY
satisfied with the endings of books in a series, and the ending to UnWholly was satisfying.Left me with plenty to ponder but not so much
that I kept flipping pages after the end thinking the last pages were missing.

Here's the trailer. . . doesn't do the book justice, but does give you an inkling of one of the bad adults referenced above. Enjoy, thanks to Simon & Schuster.